dee@linus.UUCP (David E. Emery) (07/20/88)
Does anyone have any experience mail-ordering from Dell Computer Corp,
Austin TX, particularly their System 310 ('386 @20mhz)? They got a
good mini-review in the July 88 Byte, and the price looks very nice.
I called today, and they have about a 5 week wait on shipping with a
30 days money-back guarantee. They do mail-order only (no local place
to get touchie-feelies), so any experiences, good or bad, are
appreciated.
thanks dave emery
emery@Mitre-bedford.arpa
linus!deedavidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (07/20/88)
In article <36530@linus.UUCP> dee@linus.UUCP (David E. Emery) writes: | Does anyone have any experience mail-ordering from Dell Computer Corp, | Austin TX, particularly their System 310 ('386 @20mhz)? They got a | good mini-review in the July 88 Byte, and the price looks very nice. I have had good experience with Dell. When I told them that I was having memory problems, but they are eager to write a better diagnostic to help QA before stuff goes out the door. Before someone asks, Xenix gets 2 DMA channels and the CPU in one block of memory, and this causes marginal SIMMS to fail. I've seen it in 4 of 7 386 boxes, all cured by memory changes. I would buy a 310 if I had any money. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen) (07/24/88)
IN article <36530@linus.UUCP>, dee@linus.UUCP (David E. Emery) wrote: > Does anyone have any experience mail-ordering from Dell Computer Corp, > Austin TX, particularly their System 310 ('386 @20mhz)? They got a > good mini-review in the July 88 Byte, and the price looks very nice. I've got the older 386/16. Has been running (unix) continuously since I bought it without a glitch. Very fast, no problems of any kind. They have an 800 for sales of course, but also have 800 numbers for customer support and technical assistance (unusual for a manufacturer). If you buy a system (ie, computer with video and hard disk) you get a one-year *on-site* warranty (provided by Honeywell). You have a 30-day money-back guarantee - buy it, try it out for a month, and if you don't like it, send it back. The 310 is one of the fastest 386s out there (the 25MHz machines would be faster, but I don't know who is shipping as opposed to who has announced availability :-). The down side to this is the way that speed is achieved: the "bulk" DRAM is fairly exotic "static"-column 80ns stuff I think. This means that right now extra memory is real expensive. -- James R. Van Artsdalen ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james "Live Free or Die" Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746
markh@cutter.UUCP (Mark Hebets) (07/26/88)
IN article <36530@linus.UUCP>, dee@linus.UUCP (David E. Emery) wrote: > Does anyone have any experience mail-ordering from Dell Computer Corp, > Austin TX, particularly their System 310 ('386 @20mhz)? > We just got our System 310 last week, after a seemingly endless series of missed shipping deadlines. We were getting ready to cancel the order and go elsewhere when it finally showed up. The machine looks very fast. We're using it for a file server on a 3+ LAN, and our 3+ network administrator tells me it is significantly faster than any of our other servers. I can't tell you much more now, it's only been running a few days. As for dealing with Dell, I don't think anyone here was too impressed. My own guess is that they were simply over-optimistic about production on a brand-new model, but giving us a series of short delays instead of a realistic shipping date left us pretty turned off. -- Mark Hebets, Software Applications Department, Radian Corp. PO 201088, Austin, TX 78720 (512)-454-4797 sun!texsun!radian!markh im4u!ut-sally!ut-emx!juniper/